General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is widely used for cellular machine-to-machine (M2M) devices. The cost of GPRS continues to decline over time, making GPRS more attractive to M2M providers. Furthermore, because GPRS is available worldwide, a single technology device based on GPRS can be used for applications deployed internationally. While GPRS may not allow a high level of data transmission, GPRS remains suitable for M2M because most M2M devices require very low data rates for communication.
Explosive data growth is resulting in a spectrum crunch and thus many mobile network operators (MNOs) are studying ways to refarm their 2G spectrum to the more efficient 3G/LTE. However, refarming is complicated in that MNOs must support numerous legacy M2M devices. M2M devices, for example smart meters, typically have long life cycles, and it is expensive to migrate these devices to 3G/LTE because such migration requires a service crew to be dispatched to the site where a device is deployed. Despite this, MNOs require that their 2G M2M customers migrate to 3G/LTE so that MNOs can refarm the spectrum.